Our Chastisement or Recompense
by Yamino Majo
Summary: For the Secret Santa Exchange on Saiunkoku fic. Ensei and Shousenpuu in the Satsujinzoku. If you stare into the Abyss long enough, the Abyss stares back at you.


Our Chastisement or Recompense  
For the **saiunkoku_fic** secret Santa.

Warnings: violence, underaged (?) drinking, verbal abuse, boys being boys, Ensei and Seiran (yes, they get their own warning!).  
Title from Julian and Maddalo. Line 482 by Percy Bysshe Shelley

_Those who inflict must suffer, for they see__  
__The work of their own hearts, and this must be__  
__Our chastisement or recompense.__  
_

**

A lifetime ago, Master Nan had taken him up the mountains bordering the Sa and Koku provinces for training. He remembered picking through animal trails overrun with early-summer growth, the canopy above him keeping the bright sun off. Sometimes the trail took them out of the shade, hugged narrow ledges that were paths along sheer drops. One of the turns had led to what he would call a waterspout now, but it had seemed like a gigantic waterfall to a seven-year-old.

He had looked down—a dizzying distance, the water falling, falling, falling until it all landed in a pool that eventually joined a larger stream, frothing white over shiny wet rocks. But what he remembered the most was the pool itself: white lace ripples from the water fanning out from where the waterfall landed, and beyond that, before the liquid from the stream tipped over into the river, a color he had only seen mimicked on paper. The deep sapphire blue of a peacock's feathers melting into jade tones—an amazing shade of blue-green.

He remembered this because years later, the person standing in front of him had eyes of that exact shade, and the gaze looked the way he imagined the water would feel—bone-chillingly cold.

Instead of letting Master Nan do the talking, Ensei blurted out, "Wow, your eyes are really pretty," except he talked too fast and his words stumbled against his mouth and it ended up sounding more like 'wow, you're really pretty'.

So Ensei couldn't really blame Shousenpuu for doing what he did next, but that didn't mean he failed to appreciate the other boy's vicious right hook.

**

With an introduction like that, it was inevitable that they would become best friends, though Ensei was still murky on the mechanics of best-friends-ship. When he was younger, he always thought best friends were the people that you shared your candy or the best hiding spot with. Well, when he was younger, he was not hell-bent on kicking ass and taking names of the bastards who had destroyed his life, so it made sense that some revision of his world-view was in order.

In this new world-view, his best friend was the only guy his age in the Satsujinzoku, and incidentally also the only guy that was in on the whole kicking-ass and taking names plan. His best friend was the quiet one that you had to watch out for, and instead of candy, they shared fights, wine, plans and occasionally, hiding spots.

Down the hall there was the sound of raucous laughter, the men's deeper tones matched by the bell-like giggles of the prostitutes. It would take at least a day, maybe a day and a half, before the authorities could reach this town with the snowstorm currently battering the countryside, and the Satsujinzoku were planning on taking full advantage of their spoils.

Ensei peered into the next room, trying to school his expression back to normal instead of stuck between wary and mildly grossed-out. The room's single occupant looked up from what he was doing and gave Ensei a 'Go away' glare.

"Oh, thank god." Instead of going away, Ensei slipped inside and closed the door behind him. Even though it looked like one of the rooms for the guests that would come and pay for a night's 'services', it was blissfully free of whores or his fellow bandits. Well, all except for one.

"Go find your own room." Shousenpuu told him bluntly.

"There aren't any more open rooms," Ensei shot back, making a beeline for the curtained canopy bed and crawling into it. "Without half-naked people in them, anyway." He mumbled into the bedspread.

It was amazing how well Shousenpuu can project an eye-roll—maybe what was even more amazing was how Ensei could feel it impact against the back of his head. Oh, wait. That was a ball of bandages. "You didn't seem to mind half-naked women," the other boy said, coming over and smacking him none too gently. _Out of my bed_, the gesture said.

"I like half-naked women! With big breasts!" Ensei declared, rolling over. "But not if they're with dirty, half-naked men!" He gave a full body shudder; out of the various things he wished he could un-see, coming in on the other bandits' various states of nakedness with the ladies was pretty high on the list. "Please let me stay." He whined, clinging to the covers.

A few more smacks, more whining, and a minor scuffle later, they settled in for the night on the bed—fully dressed, with weapons at hand and backs to the wall.

Ensei would eventually find, to his extreme dismay, that this would become their modus operandi in brothels.

**

They were thirteen-going-on-fourteen, and on their way to being plastered. Or at least, Ensei was, because Shousenpuu wasn't with the rest of the drunken bandits making raucous toasts. The said drunken bandits didn't try to include him either—maybe it was because they've finally figured out that getting him drunk doesn't up the general entertainment level. Shousenpuu without inhibitions was just like Shousenpuu as usual, except a lot more knife-happy, and he was pretty knife-happy to start with.

They were celebrating another 'victory', though as usual with all their victories lately, it came at a heavy price.

Ensei was drinking as much to celebrate as to forget that fully half of the members that had died in 'battle' had fallen under his staff or Shousenpuu's sword rather than anything from the law.

Kicking ass and taking names hadn't seemed so dirty and heartless back when he first joined.

He grabbed another bottle and headed for the edge of the party, where the shadows were the deepest and all exits were within easy view. Whatever Shousenpuu had done before Ensei joined, it had earned him his own personal bubble where none of their fellow bandits intruded. Ensei didn't think twice about entering it though, sitting down beside Shousenpuu and taking a tentative sip from the bottle he brought.

"Hm, not bad." The liquid tingled on Ensei's tongue and burned a little on the way down. Considering how hard it was snowing out there, the burning was welcomed. "What's yours?"

Wordlessly, Shousenpuu held up his own bottle, a white one that was smaller than Ensei's, and didn't resist when Ensei took it. He waited as Ensei took a sip, spat it out, and proceeded to cough for the next minute. "It's a bit strong." Shousenpuu said rather belatedly.

Ensei glared at him, which would've been more intimidating if his eyes hadn't been watering. "Wh-what the hell was _that_?!" he sputtered, still trying to breathe past the scorched feeling in his throat.

Shousenpuu shrugged. "Some mix of Hakuren and another alcohol, I think." As far as Ensei was concerned, it was extremely unfair how he took the bottle back and had a sip without changing expressions.

"Are you sure it's not _poison_?" Ensei asked incredulously. The alcohol felt like it was acid, on his tongue, down his throat, into his stomach. It made his eyes sting and his chest heavy and his head light.

"Don't be ridiculous," Shousenpuu rolled his eyes. "This is the best stuff they have," which didn't make _any_ sense at all.

Ensei was still shaking his head in confusion about an hour later, after a very voluptuous lady had come and gone. "Wow. She was totally into you," he slurred a bit, blinked at himself in surprise, and tried again. "I can't believe you turned her down. I mean, she had boobs out to _here_." Ensei gestured for effect.

Shousenpuu snorted, and there was a twist to his lips that Ensei wasn't sure he liked. It was usually there when he said things like 'I am going to fucking _kill them all_', which was sort of scary. "I don't have your thing for big-breasted women, idiot."

Ensei tilted over, chuckling. It felt too hot in the room, where the remaining bandits that hadn't gone off with women or went searching for more wine were still guffawing and ranting and generally making a great din. Even he and Shousenpuu had gone from sitting up to barely sitting, relaxed (mostly) against the walls and their seats. Because he was too hot, he let himself try resting against Shousenpuu's shoulder—the other boy always seemed so _cold_.

It wasn't a physical coldness though, because Shousenpuu's shoulder was warm. But, as the other boy gave him a half-hearted shove, Ensei noticed that his hands were freezing. Ensei laughed and sat back up, sort of. Away from Shousenpuu and his promised knife in the face if he didn't move, in any case.

"What _is_ your thing, anyway?" He asked, out of curiosity.

Somehow, he wasn't really surprised to hear Shousenpuu's answer. "I don't have a thing, or a type, or whatever, dumbass. I don't like _anybody_."

**

The kicking ass and taking names became dirtier and more wearisome. Some days Ensei wanted to give up because he wasn't kicking ass anymore, he was _murdering_ people. They were all bastards and thieves and murderers themselves, yes, but they were still people—and the more he killed monsters, the more he worried that he was becoming one.

He told this to Shousenpuu and got a fist in his stomach for his troubles. Shousenpuu had been strung tighter than a koto wire, becoming more and more like the blades that he carried both out in the open and hidden on his person.

Sometimes Ensei wondered if Shousenpuu didn't worry about becoming a monster because he knew he already was one.

This still left him doubled over, gasping for breath, and he was yanked upright by his hair (and that hurt, dammit). Shousenpuu hissed, "If you give up now, everything you've done would've been for _nothing_." A shake. "What the fuck were you fighting for in the first place?!"

Ensei hadn't planned on telling Shousenpuu about his family, but that really was the last straw.

Later, he stared up at the trees and said, "I feel better."

Shousenpuu snorted from somewhere around the vicinity of his left elbow at the sheer wrongness of that comment. Both of them would be black and blue tomorrow, and Ensei cataloged the damage—he definitely had bruised ribs and skinned knuckles and a split lip. His stomach was sore and he would be lucky if he didn't look like a panda.

He raised his head slightly. Shousenpuu's nose was bleeding along with his lip, and he was breathing carefully like it hurt if he did it too hard. Ensei remembered returning the jab in the stomach somewhere in the middle of their fistfight.

"You are an idiot." Shousenpuu finally said, and Ensei smiled. He really _did_ feel better—despite their fight, in the end nothing was broken. Maybe it had even forged something better from the rage and frustration—A new determination, if nothing else, because his family deserved better than his uncertainty.

It didn't make what he was doing _right_, only necessary in the most unpleasant way possible. But the arrow already left the bow and there was no getting off the path he was on. If he really became a monster, then he would spend the rest of his life making up for it.

He never wanted to even think '_the ends justify the means_' again. But until then...

"We can be monsters together." Ensei murmured. He didn't know if Shousenpuu heard him.

**

End


End file.
